10 Most Common Examples Of How Nurse Burnout Impacts Patient Safety
Written By:
Darby Faubion
Darby Faubion RN, BSN, MBA
Darby Faubion is a nurse and allied health instructor with over 20 years of clinical experience. Darby lives in Louisiana and loves exploring the state’s rich culture and history. Darby has a passion for caring for veterans and a special interest in those affected by post-traumatic stress disorder. In her quest to make a difference for veterans, she founded a non-profit called “Operation Battle Buddy.” Read Full Bio »» RN, BSN, MBA
If you are a nurse, chances are, you have either experienced or know someone who has experienced nurse burnout. In simple terms, nurse burnout is caused by chronic, unmanaged workplace stress. Left unresolved, it can lead to dire consequences for nurses, healthcare teams and organizations, and the patients for whom we provide care. It behooves us as nurses to ask the question, “What are the most common examples of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety?” and to try and prevent it when possible.
I have been a nurse for many years and have not only experienced the effects of nurse burnout, but I have also witnessed it in my friends and colleagues. As you continue reading, I will share some insight from my experiences into the 10 most common examples of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety. While we may not prevent every case of nurse burnout, by educating ourselves and learning to identify the signs, we can help reduce the risks and promote patient safety and better outcomes for patients, nurses, and the profession.
What are the Common Examples of How Nurse Burnout Impacts Patient Safety?
(The following are the 10 most common examples of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety.)
EXAMPLE #1: Nursing Leaders Lose Interest
Many years ago, I worked at a large hospital that had an extensive in-house outpatient facility. The outpatient clinic had several subspecialty clinics, including pediatrics, surgery, ophthalmology, and rheumatology. The nurse manager I worked with was brilliant, but he had a lot of responsibility and little help from upper management. In time, the manager lost interest in his job, which was evident in the way he interacted with nursing staff, other healthcare team members, and even patients.
While loss of interest in the job may seem like a personal issue to some people, it is one example of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety. This is true because when nurse leaders experience burnout and lose interest in their jobs, there are higher incidences of problems within the nursing team, such as inappropriate staffing ratios, poor interdisciplinary communication, and lack of follow-up. As a result, patient care suffers, which means an increased risk to patient safety.
EXAMPLE #2: Burnout Leads to Impaired Decision-Making
Nurse burnout can seriously affect cognitive functioning, which leads to impaired decision-making ability. Unfortunately, when a nurse’s ability to make sound decisions is affected, it can lead to serious consequences, not only creating issues with patient safety, but leaving nurses in the position of compromising their jobs or careers, especially if a patient injury or death occur.
I understand that it can be hard to admit when you feel overwhelmed or burned out, but as a nurse, it is crucial to put the patient’s needs and safety as a priority. If you feel you are experiencing burnout, do not let pride get in the way. Talk to your charge nurse or supervisor and let them help, especially if there are important decisions to be made which could impact patient outcomes.
EXAMPLE #3: Nurses Are More Easily Distracted
When nurses experience burnout, it is much easier to become distracted on the job, which is another example of how patient safety can be compromised. At one of my first nursing jobs, I worked the night shift and was the only nurse. Although I loved the work I did, the residents in my care, and the staff on my team, being the only nurse working long nights took a toll on me. Even though I tried to get enough sleep during the day, my sleep schedule never seemed right because my days off were spent trying to catch up on errands and other important things, which meant being up during the day and sleeping at night, which was the opposite of my work schedule.
After a while, despite loving my job, I began to exhibit
signs of nurse burnout, including feeling physically and mentally exhausted. One thing I noticed was that I was more easily distracted at work. Tasks that I should have accomplished in a short time started taking longer to finish because my attention span was shorter, and I found myself having to go back to things I had only half-completed. While none of my patients were harmed, had I not been cognizant of the effects of burnout and made changes, they could have been. Distracted nurses make more medication errors, omit care, and miss more things on assessments than nurses who are alert and focused.
EXAMPLE #4: Slowed Response Time
Another example of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety is it can lead to slowed response time in patient care. While some situations may not be an emergency, there are times when every second counts. Nurses experiencing burnout tend to take longer to identify and address patient needs, which could lead to serious consequences, especially in emergency situations or when patients have a significant decline or change in their status.
Delegating tasks to appropriate team members may help with the workload, but keep in mind that it is still your job as the registered nurse to make appropriate decisions about delegation and to respond to needs in a timely manner.
EXAMPLE #5: Increased Risk of Patient Injury
Among the many examples of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety, let us not forget that there is an increased risk of injury to patients. Whether nurses experiencing burnout have impaired decision-making, slower response times, or communicate poorly, it can lead to patient injuries. For example, slow response times when patients need assistance could lead to falls or other serious injuries. Impaired decision-making could lead to inappropriate interventions being implemented, which may also cause injury.
EXAMPLE #6: Poor Communication Among Team Members
Nurse burnout leads to increased stress, compromised mental wellness, and negative attitudes, which causes breaks in effective communication. Poor communication within the nursing and interdisciplinary team impacts patient safety on many levels. It can lead to medication errors, errors in reporting critical events or changes in a patient’s status, and delays in response time to patient needs. The effects are far-reaching, leading to poor patient satisfaction rates, poor patient outcomes, increased healthcare costs, and poor employee satisfaction rates.
EXAMPLE #7: Decreased Quality of Patient Care
One of the most unfortunate examples of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety is that burnout often causes emotional detachment in nurses, which leads to a decrease in the quality of care patients receive. When patient care quality is subpar, it causes an increase in risks to patient safety. The reduced emotional response or lack of emotional response of nurses towards patients is often reflected in the lack of personal attention nurses give to patients or their loved ones and their lack of interaction with peers regarding important patient matters.
EXAMPLE #8: Medication Errors
I will never forget one of the scariest events of my early nursing career when one of my coworkers administered the wrong medication to a patient, and the patient had a major adverse reaction, ending up in the intensive care unit. As you can imagine, there was a lot of speculation about what led up to the event. Knowing the nurse and having worked the same unit, I was aware that she had worked several double shifts without days off, which is enough to cause any nurse to experience fatigue, lapses in concentration, and impaired decision-making. Unfortunately, the symptoms of burnout she experienced went unaddressed, landed a patient in the ICU, and cost the nurse her job.
Unfortunately, medication errors are a common example of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety. As someone who has experienced burnout, I encourage you to be honest about what you think and feel. If you begin to feel overwhelmed at work and need a break or a day off, talk to your supervisor. It is much better to take some mental health time and regroup than to jeopardize patient safety and risk losing your job.
EXAMPLE #9: Increased Incidence of Hospital-Acquired Infections
Another example of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety is that there appears to be an increase in the number of hospital-acquired infections in facilities where there is a higher occurrence of nurse burnout. Some research, as reported by the
American Journal of Nursing, indicates that a 10% increase in the proportion of nurses experiencing burnout added to one catheter-associated and two surgical-site infections per every 1,000 patients. The same research suggests if burnout can be reduced by 10%, hospitals could prevent more than 4,100 hospital-acquired infections annually.
EXAMPLE #10: Burnout Leads to Higher Nurse Turnover
Nurse burnout is characterized by three major symptoms: exhaustion, reduced sense of personal accomplishment, and depersonalization. It’s no wonder when nurses experience burnout that there is a
higher turnover rate in nursing jobs. Unfortunately, the turnover rates add to an already troubling nursing shortage. When hospitals and other healthcare facilities are understaffed, it poses a greater risk to patient safety.
I have a good friend who is an emergency room nurse at a local hospital, and she has told me on several occasions how hard it is to keep nurses on staff. Despite earning good wages, the work is challenging and often unpredictable. She said it has become common to see high rates of turnover in her department, leaving the nurses who remain to work longer hours, which increases their risk of burnout, and the cycle continues.
My Final Thoughts
Having been a nurse for more than 20 years, I understand the stress that comes with the job and how easy it is to experience burnout. No matter which area of nursing you work in, what specialty interests you, or the type of facility where you work, there is always a chance of experiencing nurse burnout. It is important to know the risks of nurse burnout. One important question to consider is, “What are the most common examples of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety?" By recognizing the ten most common examples of how nurse burnout impacts patient safety I shared in this article, we can find ways to address nurse burnout and promote patient safety, which benefits not only patients but nurses and all healthcare professionals.
List Of Sources Used For This Article
1.
“What Is Nurse Burnout? How to Prevent It” (
American Nurses Association Nursing Resources Hub)
2.
“Reducing Nurse Burnout Might Reduce Hospital-Acquired Infections” (
American Journal of Nursing)
3.
“Impact of Nurse Burnout on Organizational and Position Turnover” (
National Library of Medicine)
Darby Faubion, RN, BSN, MBA
Darby Faubion is a nurse and allied health instructor with over 20 years of clinical experience. Her work history includes clinical experience in pediatrics, mental health, addiction and behavioral disorders, geriatrics, wound management, and communicable disease. Darby has worked in hospitals, long-term care facilities, and home health and hospice agencies. Darby also has experience as a nursing and allied health educator at both community college and university levels. Her love for nursing and nursing education led to her becoming a test-taking strategist and NCLEX prep coach.